Winter colds are never any fun – the high fever, the hacking cough, the difficulty breathing. Now imagine trying to struggle through all of that when you are undernourished, under five years old and under no care other than the worried eyes of your mother. Imagine dying of pneumonia.

In an op-ed published today in the GlobalPost, Sabin executive vice president Ciro de Quadros, M.D., M.P.H., looks back on his work treating communities in Brazil which were once devastated by smallpox and polio.